


help me piece it all together, darling

by trailsofpaper



Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sex, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:24:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21921061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trailsofpaper/pseuds/trailsofpaper
Summary: Dan Smith, sometime after he turns fourteen, travels in time. What follows, if not chronologically, is a life of existential dread and an inability to follow his dreams. Dan thinks there is no purpose to it, and is resigned to this existence of inconvenience, until he goes to a party where he meets a dark-eyed man with a bright smile, who is sure they've met before.
Relationships: Dan Smith/other (mentioned), Kyle Simmons/Dan Smith
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	1. Past (1980–1993)

**Author's Note:**

> I was 500 words in when I knew this fic was going to be more than 10K, and I've deleted scenes of up to 5k of words during the process of writing this monster
> 
> In other words: the title also describes the writing process. When I started, sometime in May of this year, I thought I had this one cut and clear but I absolutely didn't — Time travel is tricky and I'm kinda dumb. But time travel and Bastille go together; I had to write some more, but different, time travel (Dan being a time traveler just makes sense).
> 
> It's also a 90s AU but that's mostly because I didn't want to bother with smartphones (no honestly, you don't want to hear my thesis about the timelessness of the 90s). The working title was "The Time Traveler's One-Night Stand" but this story has very little in common with The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Dan's clothes travel with him, for a start.  
Some warning for unnegotiated kink (kind of) in this first chapter

_Past (1980–1993)_

Some people, when they hit puberty, developed allergies, or started to be violently carsick where they'd had no trouble at all during childhood. Dan Smith, sometime after he turned fourteen, became unstuck in time.

He'd turned up at school first thing in the morning and gotten detention for skipping school. Shocked and dismayed that he'd somehow lost two hours of his life and afraid that maybe his daydreaming tendencies had gotten out of hand, he'd accepted the detention, only to find himself back at the start of the day as soon as he walked out. The bell ringing in for first period had echoed strangely in Dan's ears.

Earlier (or technically later) Dan's friends had expressed a vague sort of admiration for his rebellion, so he didn't want to have to admit it was an accident. And besides, he was afraid that he would upset the time continuum, or cause and effect or something, so he just walked away. He spent the day bumming around Wimbledon with his school uniform tie stuck in his back pocket until school let out and he could go home and not tell his parents about the detention, nor the reason for it.

For a while he thought this was a one-off, but then he remembered what he thought had been a dream; at ten years old he'd woken up to find himself, older but still recognizable, sneaking in through the door with a finger pressed to his lips to signal he stay quiet. He'd talked to himself for most of the night about time travel and about how he should never tell anyone about the future and how strange it would be to remember this when he did it again. Yes, the future him had said, it_ was _ weird. And no, I _ can't _tell you how you'll do on the maths exam, because I can't bloody remember. Then, present Dan had gotten up to use the loo, and when he got back, future him was gone.

He generally tried to avoid himself, when he traveled in time. It always invited questions Dan wasn't prepared to answer. He forgot to tell ten year old-him that, when he, at fifteen, traveled back to meet him in his bedroom, but then, he knew he'd figure it out eventually.

* * *

At sixteen he was sitting alone in his pajamas on a Saturday morning, eating his cereal. As he reached for the newspaper, he absent-mindedly dropped his spoon to the floor, and thoughtlessly he dove under the table to retrieve it. When he emerged, he found his sister sitting in his chair in her school uniform and shooting him a murderous glance. The paper he'd been reading was nowhere to be seen.

"How long have you been hiding under the table for, you weirdo?" Frances said scathingly and kicked Dan in the side with her socked foot. "Mum's gonna go spare if she sees you're not dressed yet."

Dan blinked and heard a noise from the bathroom, and realized, with dawning horror, that that was probably future him about to exit. He bumped the table when he scrambled upright, and in his haste to get to the bathroom he accidentally upended the jug of milk that he hadn't brought to the table.

"Oi, what the fuck, Dan!" Frances shouted after him, but Dan was busy slamming into the bathroom door to keep it from opening. He heard a surprised but muffled exclamation from inside, and then he then yanked the door open and slunk inside while keeping himself from getting out.

"Oh," said the version of himself from the future and eyed the version of himself whose shoulder ached from hitting first the table and then the door. "It's _ this _morning already? Well, good luck."

"Good luck?" Dan said and watched himself reach out his hands. It was like looking into a mirror; if he didn't know for a fact he hadn't lived through the other end of the experience, he wouldn't be able to tell he was older.

"Yeah," future-him said and flexed his hands impatiently. "Come on, give me your jammies and Frances will think you — me — just rushed in here to get changed. Keep the door locked until you go back, it'll be fine."

"How do you know?" Dan said, defensively. Seeing himself rolling his eyes from the outside was disconcerting.

"I've lived through it, remember?"

"No, I don't," Dan said sourly, but he had to concede the point. That didn't mean he enjoyed sitting on the toilet in the nude until the universe saw fit to return him, stark naked, to the Saturday morning where his cereal had long since disintegrated in the milk.

He didn't much care for the implication of closed time loops and what they meant for exercising free will, so he decided that he wouldn't think too much about it. A few days later, when he _ was _on the other side of the experience, he glared at Frances on his way to his room and threw his pajamas vindictively on the bed.

* * *

By the time he graduated from upper secondary school, he could go months without a lapse. And anyway, he usually returned to what he thought of as his right place in the timeline after an hour or two on the outside, more or less an hour or two after the time he left. It was hardly even noticeable when it happened outside of the school day. 

There was never any warning before it happened, but just before he was about to snap back, he could sometimes sense a tingling in his fingers. He took up running, which helped him come to terms with the awkwardness of his own growing body, and he imagined it grounded him a little, made him less prone to flail around in time.

He did get some talkings-to, by his mother, and sometimes by his choir leader, when he got lost in time. Dan would've quit choir, but he and another boy, Marcus, tended to sneak off after practice, to try cigarettes and snogging and, on one occasion, something more. He didn't want Marcus to think Dan was trying to avoid him.

In comparison, Dan didn't think what they were doing was strange, not even after graduating his all boys school for a co-ed and meeting girls. He didn't meet Marcus much after that though, and anyway, Marcus had said it didn't count with boys. Dan didn't agree, but he found out he quite liked girls too, so he figured he'd let it go. They were often welcoming of him, in a way a group of boys seldom were, and they didn't care that he sometimes didn't show up when he'd said he was going to.

It meant, probably, that they were just as well off without him as with him, but that was just something Dan had to live with. Another downside to a condition with no upside. _ Dan's always late, _ people said, _ oh, Dan, he disappears sometimes, _ and Dan didn't want to tell them how right they were.

* * *

It was pretty easy, actually, while he studied at uni, because no one expected much of him. He couldn't sign up for scheduled extracurriculars, but he made up for it by otherwise being active in the student social life (he learned how to mix several drinks, even if he wasn't particularly good at it), and then writing for the student newspaper because, as long as he met the deadlines, no one cared that he didn't show up regularly.

"You should play at the pub sometime," his flatmate Ralph told him, one rainy afternoon where they were lazing around and Dan had taken one of Ralph's half-written songs, tacked on an ending and was composing a bridge on his shitty portable keyboard. "The songs you've done, they're good. I could ask Matt."

Dan hit an off-note on the keyboard. In his mind's eye he saw himself, in front of an audience that was uninvested in his success but would sit up and notice when he disappeared in the blink of an eye. No matter what happened after something like that, his life would never be the same.

"I sing like a strangled crow," Dan said and kept sounding out the melody. "Matt has his customers to think of. That's why he never lets you play, either."

Ralph threw a crumpled up page of notes at him and Dan dodged with a laugh. But he'd dodged the topic too, and Dan could go on with his life, safely.

It worked for him, and after graduation, it seemed only natural to keep doing it. Reviewing films and music for a job was a dream, and Dan counted himself lucky for having it. He had a shitty little flat in London, took the tube to the office everyday and sent in his writing by the deadline almost every time, and if he sometimes got loose in the time stream, no one cared. 

* * *

"Smith!" his boss called when he walked by her open office door on a Friday that had him longing for the sweet release of the weekend. Dan swerved and peeked inside, finding his boss sitting at her desk with a pencil sticking out of her messy hair bun.

"Yes, Catherine?" he said, studiously polite. Catherine liked that about him; she said it was a rarity in the field.

"How'd you like to go to a pre-showing tonight, write a review?" she said and pointed another pencil at him. Dan raised his eyebrows in a nonplussed expression.

"Sure," he said with a shrug. "What film?"

Catherine told him. She grinned knowingly when his face fell in shock.

_ "Fire Walk With Me? _No way!" he said, trying to contain a feeling of giddy excitement. He'd never be able to explain how the campy surrealism of David Lynch's Twin Peaks resonated with him, but he didn't need to. Catherine only grinned wider.

"Yes way!" she said laughingly. "Now, don't fuck it up, Dan!"

"I won't!" Dan promised.

* * *

Dan promptly fucked it up.

He stepped through the door, and he could tell, these days, when he'd traveled in time. A change in the atmosphere, the feeling of air on his skin different.

"Fuck," Dan said, into the empty theatre.

"We're closing, sir," the attendant sweeping the aisles told him reproachfully. Dan nodded and turned on his heel to march right outside and think over his options.

Leaning his shoulder to the brick wall of the building and breathing in the polluted London air, Dan thought. He thought that he could try to hide out in the theatre and wait to be transported back to his right time, but there was no guarantee that he'd be let in for the showing in the middle of it.

He figured he should count himself lucky that the time travel always happened between one step and the next, and that it didn't send him off into space as well. He'd tumbled down a set of stairs once, but that was about the extent of it. Dan was so terrified about flying that his parents used to get him a dose of zolpidem each time they went to visit family in South Africa, to make sure he was out for the entire journey. So far, Dan had never traveled while he slept.

Dan pulled in another breath, verging on hysterical. No, there was no way he'd make it, he'd missed the pre-premiere showing of_ Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, _ and Catherine was going to fire his sorry arse, and he was going to deserve it.

"Bloody unfair," he muttered and pulled a hand over his head. Not for the first time, he wished he could claw out whatever defect it was that made him slosh around the time stream like a piece of flotsam. But there was nothing to be done, and Dan leaned his head on the cool brick of the building and tried to push down the disappointment mingled with panic that brewed in his gut.

"Oi, Dan, is that you?" said a voice, and Dan blinked open his eyes to behold none other than Tom, who'd slowed his step so that his companion had gotten ahead already. Tom was a photographer who worked on music videos, and he and Dan had tag-teamed on some projects with Tom as a freelancer. He was an easy sort of guy, with a good sense of humour, and Dan smiled tiredly at him.

"Oh yeah, hi Tom," Dan said and pushed off the wall. "How's it going?"

"I was just going to ask you the same," Tom said and looked Dan up and down meaningfully. "We're headed to a thing, Greg there" —here he nodded to his friend, who had stopped and was looking back at them— "he's throwing a party, want to come?"

"God yes, please," Dan said. Tom laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

"It's a house party," Tom said with an apologetic smile when he and Dan came up by Greg's side. "It's my house, but I'm not the one arranging it, so I can't guarantee anything other than that there will be alcohol."

"You don't need to guarantee much more than that," Dan said, and both Greg and Tom laughed.

"We're only arranging it because Tom won't," Greg said. "Releasing a documentary is something to celebrate, I've been telling him! And I had to drag him out of the studio, too."

"Didn't know you were working on a documentary," Dan said and jostled Tom with his elbow. "What's it about?"

"Ah, well, the current music scene, sort of. Could've sworn I told you about it," Tom said with a shrug. "Well, sorry. At least you're getting a party out of it now."

The party was already in full swing by the time the honoree arrived. This meant that Tom was immediately whisked away by excited friends, and Dan and Greg were left in the foyer, searching for somewhere to put their jackets.

"So what do you do?" Dan asked Greg, trying his best not to be awkward. He didn't particularly succeed.

Greg flashed him a smile. "I'm a photographer. I helped Tom with the film. You?"

"Oh, I write music reviews, mostly," Dan said. "Sometimes film reviews, too."

"So Tom should get you to watch the documentary, then."

"Well, I'd love to see it!"

There was a bar out in the living room. Dan grabbed a beer from the red cooler and popped it open with a satisfying hiss, but in the process he lost Greg somewhere in the throng. 

He saw a couple of people he knew, from work mostly, and some friends of Tom's, but they were all firmly entrenched in a group or conversation, and Dan wasn't nearly drunk enough to comfortably insert himself in their company. So he took a sip of the beer and started to wander around the house.

It was a two-story house - it was roomy, but right now the ground floor was packed with enough people to make it feel claustrophobic. Dan finished his beer in the hallway to the kitchen, and so it felt natural to wander into the kitchen and conscientiously throw the beer can in the trash.

Aimlessly, he opened the fridge and found three neat rows of beer bottles. He closed his eyes and let the chill wash over him for a moment. There was nothing for it, really. He was stuck here at this party, no telling for how long, and he was afraid of talking to people for fear that they'd find out he was a man out of time.

Dan heard someone enter. Guiltily, he closed the fridge door and turned around.

He found himself looking at the dip of a throat peeking out above the collar of a white t-shirt, and he had to raise his head to look the person in the eye, which was a bit unusual for him. 

It was a young man, lanky but broad in the shoulders, with a lively face framed by a black beard and bushy eyebrows. Dan gave him a sheepish wave.

"Hello," the man said, warily. "Didn't expect to find anyone in here."

"Yeah, sorry, I was just—" having a mental breakdown, Dan thought, but finished with, "—looking for something to drink."

"Alright, well, then you're in luck!" the man said and held up a tall bottle of vodka. "If you've got some beer, then we're all set."

Dan turned back to the fridge to pull out two beer bottles, and the man had come up by his side by the time he'd managed to get the caps off. "In Germany they call that the U-Boot," he said and poured two shots of vodka in what Dan suspected to be egg cups.

"They do?" Dan said. He noticed the dark blot of a tattoo on the guy's slender forearm as they exchanged one bottle of beer for one shot of vodka, and he found himself intrigued. 

"Yeah, means submarine," the man said and gingerly picked up his own shot. He had a tattoo on his other arm too, peeking out from under his t-shirt sleeve. "But they, er, they plonk the vodka into the pint before they drink, glass and all. It's like a tradition or something. Don't think this'll fit in the bottle though, but beggars can't be choosers, eh?"

"Well, you learn something new every day," Dan say and managed a smile. "Cheers?"

The man looked at him for a beat. Then he cracked a grin and raised his egg cup full of vodka. "Cheers!" he agreed.

They downed the vodka in unison, and Dan made a face as it burned down his throat. It was cheap stuff and tasted of nothing but rubbing alcohol.

With the vodka over and done with and reaching for the beer bottle, Dan looked the stranger over one more time. He seemed oddly youthful for a man with a full beard, with large eyes and a posture so straight Dan felt a twinge in his own back from looking at it. He glanced at Dan, almost shyly, and lifted his own bottle to his lips.

He was dressed neatly, in tight, black jeans, but the white t-shirt had a collar loose enough that Dan thought it had to have been stretched by use. He kind of wanted to hook his finger in it when the man bared his throat to swallow.

"You don't remember me, do you?" he said when he put the bottle back down.

Dan was glad he hadn't had the chance to drink yet, because he would doubtlessly have choked on it. Instead he just lowered his bottle and tried to look contrite. "No, sorry, I don't."

For a brief moment, his face fell. But then he held out his hand and helpfully supplied, "I'm Kyle!" 

Dan shook his hand. It was broad and warm and adorned with rings. "I'm Dan. It's nothing personal, I'm rubbish at remembering names."

"It feels a bit personal," Kyle said, but he tugged his mouth into a lopsided grin to make it clear he wasn't being serious. Dan tried in vain to recall his face. His didn't seem like a face he would forget.

"I promise, it's not you, it's me," Dan tried to joke, but Kyle looked away to take another swig of his beer.

"I always wondered about your hair," he said and gave Dan another glance. "Makes you look like a skinhead, and with the boots you wear, but–"

Self-consciously, Dan ran a hand over his buzzed hair. He had figured the smartest thing to do was to keep his hair really short so he'd always look more or less the same, and his time travel mishaps would remain difficult for others to notice. He wasn't going to tell Kyle that.

"But?" he prompted.

Kyle shrugged and a grin tugged at his mouth. "I mean, you don't seem like the punk type, if I'm honest."

"No, I mean, I don't like fascists, obviously," Dan said with a laugh. "But I don't go around putting stickers on stuff, or marching in protests, so I guess I'm not very punk, no."

"Well, me neither," Kyle said and pulled another swig from the bottle. He wiped off his moustache afterwards, which was long enough to curl over the corners of his mouth. Dan nodded at him.

"How long have you had a beard for, then?"

Kyle barked a laugh and used his free hand to smooth the beard down. "This? A couple of years, since I was around twenty-three, I think. It hides my weak chin."

"Makes you look like you're into heavy metal," Dan commented lightly. "Or it would if you had long hair."

"Oh, could you imagine?" Kyle said and coquettishly mimed brushing long hair off his shoulder. "No, I'm more into what you'd call light wave, or something. We've a band with my mate Nick." He gave Dan a hopeful look, like this would maybe spark something of his memory. "It's just music, no lyrics or anything, we're called Tyde. With a Y."

Dan had to silently shake his head, and Kyle shrugged again.

"You must have a lot of bands to keep track of," he said. "You still write for the– um, a magazine, right?"

"Oh! Yeah, I do," Dan said. He then made a face. "If I'm not fired already. I sort of fucked up today."

"That's the pits, I'm sorry mate," Kyle said sympathetically and lifted the vodka bottle in a silent offering. Dan shook his head but still held out his egg cup.

Some vodka shots in, Dan found himself liking Kyle a lot. He had a tendency to stammer, but he never let it deter him, and when he talked he did it excitedly, but he never lost track of what Dan was saying and listened intently in turn.

"I don't actually know anyone at this party," Kyle confided in him, where they'd ended up on the staircase to the second storey. "I tagged along with a mate, 'cos I figured, maybe I'll meet some good people, but then he ditched me, and I was honestly going to leave but then–"

"You wanted to steal a bottle of vodka first," Dan filled in, inexplicably close to laughter. Sitting on these stairs with Kyle felt like having a childhood sleepover with a long-time friend. He was content to sit here all evening, if only he could.

Kyle ducked his head down and said, in a conspiratorial but loud whisper, "Keep it down! I can't go to jail again!"

"Again–" Dan said, before he caught the mischievous glint in Kyle's eye, and they both burst into helpless laughter.

Dan was drunk enough that he leaned into Kyle's side, and Kyle leaned back, heavy and warm. Dan shifted to lean his back against the railing, before they toppled over; Kyle followed, lax and still leaning on him.

"Oh," Kyle said, still with laughter in his voice, and wiped a thumb underneath his eye. "You should've seen your face."

"Mm," Dan said and tried to drink from the bottle of vodka but found it empty. He turned to look at Kyle, and found him already looking back.

"Hey," Kyle said.

"Hi," Dan replied. He saw Kyle's eyes flit down for a second. The movement felt surypy slow, but he still didn't have time to prepare for Kyle to look back up, and then surge upwards to kiss Dan on the mouth.

It wasn't a surprise, though, how nice it felt. To have warm lips press against his, the steadying heat of a hand resting on his arm, the soft scratch of beard against his stubble. Dan parted his lips in a sigh, and Kyle's mouth slotted easily against his.

The doppler shift sound of an approaching voice made Dan start, and he pulled away. A couple of women passed the staircase, deep enough in discussion that they didn't notice Dan and Kyle on the stairs, but Kyle's hand was still on Dan's arm, and Dan swallowed.

"D'you think," he said in a whisper, "I mean, we could find a room upstairs, probably?"

"Oh, yeah, we should– yeah," Kyle said, breathless and laughing, and Dan fell a little bit in love with the sound of his voice.

The both of them scrambled up the stairs in a race that felt a lot more juvenile than whatever it precluded, and by the time they barricaded themselves in a bathroom, Dan was out of breath and laughing too. 

They both had their backs to the locked door, but Kyle leaned forward to brace his hands on his knees for a moment until he grabbed the edge of the sink and pulled himself up.

He looked back at Dan, the laughter transformed into something more somber, and he reached out a hand to pull at the sleeve of Dan's sweater. The gesture was indescribably tender, almost shy, and Dan's heart seized up for a second. 

Tentatively, he lifted his own hand and traced the tattoo on Kyle's forearm that was one of the first thing he'd spotted about him. He swept his thumb over the stylized outline of a bird and saw goosebumps rise in its wake. Kyle looked down at Dan's hand and then looked up at him through his lashes.

"That one's new," he said and leaned close so all Dan had to do was tilt his face up to kiss him. A thrill ran down Dan's spine when Kyle parted his lips and leaned against him, making him crane his neck. Dan could taste beer, but Kyle's mouth was hot and wet and everything he could have wanted.

Kyle shifted to kiss the corner of Dan's mouth. It all felt urgent all of sudden, under this fluorescent light, — before long, Dan was going to travel back to his own time, no matter what — so he fit his hands against Kyle's slender waist and tugged at the t-shirt and kissed the joint where his neck met his shoulder.

Dan tilted his head up, trailing his lips across Kyle's cheek, blindly searching for his mouth while he fumbled with his fly. Kyle paused for a moment, hands on Dan's arms, and looked down at him with dark eyes and an inscrutable expression. But before Dan could ask, Kyle leaned down and kissed him again, open-mouthed and desperate.

His arousal flared to life with the intensity of the kiss, spreading like wildfire through his body, and he tried to pull Kyle even closer, wanted to crawl under his skin. Dan felt like he couldn't breathe, he wanted it so much, and he dug his fingers into Kyle's skin.

Kyle responded in kind; he made quick work of Dan's trousers, pulling them down to his ankles by kneeling at his feet. Dan's heart lodged in his throat when he looked down at Kyle, who grinned brightly at him, and then put his mouth on Dan's cock.

Dan gasped, scrambling for something to steady him; he pressed one hand flat against the locked door and put his other on Kyle's head as his knees threatened to buckle.

Kyle's mouth was hot and wet and perfect, and the hand that wasn't encircling him was gripping Dan's arse steadily. The warring sensations were rippling out in pleasurable waves, and Dan screwed his eyes shut tight, in a feeble attempt to lessen their impact. He curled his fingers in Kyle's silky hair, and he felt more than heard Kyle groan around him.

"Oh, god," Dan said, voice high, before he could stop himself.

Kyle took his mouth off him then and reached up to press an admonishing finger against Dan's lips. The gesture made Dan smile, and Kyle grinned back, lips reddened and slick. On a whim, Dan opened his mouth and let Kyle's finger slip in.

"Oh, f– oh," Kyle whispered, when Dan traced his tongue against the calluses on Kyle's fingertip. He settled back on his haunches, brought his hand down with him as he swallowed Dan down again.

_ "Ah," _Dan said, before he slapped his own hand across his mouth to keep quiet. 

Dan could feel Kyle's hand come to rest for a moment in the crease of his thigh, and then slip further down between his legs, to press against the most intimate part of him. His leg twitched, but it took enough concentration to not just wantonly buck into Kyle's welcoming mouth that he stayed still, and the sensation of Kyle's spit-slick finger breaching him was a shock that had him biting into the heel of his hand. He'd had that finger in his mouth, he knew the size of it, and yet it felt impossibly large.

But much like their first kiss, the shock wasn't unwelcome, even if it was overwhelming. Dan forced his eyes open, to look down at Kyle's dark head between his legs, to reach for his face.

"Kyle, I'm so close," he whispered. "I'm going to– to–"

Kyle only looked up, through a sweep of eyelashes, and Dan had to throw his own arm over his face to stifle the groan that threatened to spill out when he came in Kyle's mouth.

Dan, at last, let his knees buckle. He slid down to the floor and came face to face with Kyle, who swallowed audibly and then wiped his mouth with a quick wink his way. Dan laughed weakly and reached out to finally hook his finger in Kyle's t-shirt collar.

"C'mere," Dan mumbled, afraid that Kyle wouldn't. But Kyle did; he leaned in and kissed Dan, who had his t-shirt fisted in one hand and awkwardly tried to get his fly open with the other. Kyle's fingers tangled with his, and together they managed to shove his tight trousers down so Dan could get a hand on him.

Dan wanked him off, with Kyle's hand wrapped around his own, all while they kept kissing, messy and frantic. It didn't take long until Kyle broke off the kiss to pant harshly into Dan's neck, and Dan didn't mind that he set his teeth to his shoulder when he came, to muffle the noise he made.

For a while they sat there, Dan leaning on the door and Kyle leaning on Dan, until their breathing had calmed down. Dan heard Kyle draw in one last, shaky breath, and then he straightened up.

He looked Dan in the eyes, a bit sheepishly. "Sorry," he said, and looked down. Dan followed his gaze and saw the wet stain on his sweater. It was extremely conspicuous, and Dan barked a laugh. His entire body was still tingling with the aftereffects of his orgasm.

"Alright, go on," Dan said and pushed at Kyle with his knee, to start pulling up his trousers. "Get out of here, I'll just wash up a bit first."

"Alright, alright," Kyle said and got to his feet, laboriously, and pulled up his own trousers. Dan was already trying to dab the worst off with some toilet paper when Kyle turned the door handle to sneak out. "See you outside?"

"Yeah," Dan said with a smile, and Kyle smiled back before he slipped out.

He closed the door carefully, and before the echo of the click had dissipated, Dan was gone.


	2. Future, 1992, 1993

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The interview is riffed off [this Tyde interview](https://neonmusic.co.uk/were-cooking-up-new-tracks-an-exclusive-interview-with-tyde) which in my opinion is unconscionably vague and unsatisfactory as far as interviews go, but is, like, the only one out there. I realize now that a surprising amount of this story takes place in bathrooms.

_Future, 1992, 1993_

As Dan splashed some water on his already stained sweater, he knew he was back in his own time. Probably an hour or so into the film he was supposed to review. He knew it because he'd been plunged into absolute darkness, without anyone touching the light switch.

Blindly he found his way to the door, and cracked it open. The hallway was dark, but there at least some streetlight seeped in through the windows, and to all luck, the house seemed to be if not empty, then at least quiet.

He frowned. He would've expected the party preparations to be in full swing by now, and as he snuck down the stairs to the foyer, he thanked his lucky stars that they weren't.

The keys were conscientiously placed in a bowl on the counter beside the door, so Dan unlocked the door, slipped out, locked behind him and pushed the keys inside through the mail slot, and hoped that Tom was the forgetful sort who didn't remember where he'd left his keys.

As he walked down the pathway to the street, he noticed the autumn-coloured leaves on the oak tree in the yard. He hadn't noticed them on his way inside. As a matter of fact, he was fairly certain it hadn't had any leaves at all when he'd come up to the house in the first place.

Dan leaned against a streetlight and pushed the heel of his hand into his eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he told himself. Always check the date. 

He'd assumed he'd only traveled forward in time later the same evening and not– God knew how much. Days? Months? Bloody years?

The reason Dan didn't remember Kyle was that they hadn't met yet.

* * *

He got home without incident. He ate some late supper and paced around his flat, wondering if he could maybe bullshit together a review of a film he hadn't seen, decided it was impossible, and decided to go for a run.

It was a bit out of his way, but Dan had found a nice route past Battersea park and was trying to count all the late-night dogs walkers when he nearly stumbled over someone who sprang out from the bushes.

"You alright, mate?" Dan asked, catching his breath before he realized who it was. "What are you doing here?"

He looked reproachfully at himself, from a time when he was still fighting puberty and his hair was a bit longer than he generally kept it. The age gap was big enough that people would assume they were siblings but not twins. He was dressed in a hoodie that was too big, and Dan wondered if he still had it somewhere. Past Dan glared back, balefully, and crossed his arms.

"I didn't do it on purpose, you know I can't help it," he said, and Dan sighed internally. He was beginning to remember it. He'd been out here, on a Saturday afternoon, bumming cigarettes with friends when he'd stepped away to have a piss, and then, quick as you like, he was in the future for a spell and had the rotten luck of stumbling across himself. What were the odds?

"No, I know," Dan said. "You're alright though. Stop smoking, it's bad for you."

Past Dan sniffed and pulled a sleeve over his mouth. "You'd tell me if I got cancer though."

Dan shook his head. He always hated this part. It was disconcerting to see his own face from the outside, mark all the wrinkles and marks that age put on him — or to see what youthfulness he'd lost. "I might still get cancer, you never know," he said mildly.

"No, I never know," past him said. "No bloody use, is it, this time travel?"

Dan thought about Kyle. "It's a fucking nightmare."

Then he caught his own eye, and the both of them cracked a grin. "Yeah it is," past him said.

"Come on, you can't spend the night out here," Dan said, because he remembered him saying it and because it was true.

But, just as he remembered it happening, he disappeared back to his own time before they made it back. His friends had moved on by then, leaving him alone and freezing outside, but there was nothing Dan could do in the present but square his shoulders and walk the rest of the way home.

* * *

At home, Dan stripped out of his sweaty clothes and stepped into the shower. He turned the water several degrees hotter than he usually did and put his head under the stream, to let the rushing water drown out his thoughts.

It didn't work. It never did, and now his mind was hell-bent on turning the last day over and over again. Turning up out of time and then pulled back at the wrong time, the hopeful look in Kyle's eyes when he'd smiled at him.

In a desperate attempt to stave off further recollection, Dan put his hand between his legs, to have a mindless wank. But the feeling of his own hand inevitably brought to mind a comparison with Kyle's broad palm and long fingers, the way he had fitted them around Dan, to meet his mouth. His cock twitched at the memory.

Dan had never even gotten his last name. Kyle, who was in a band, and nicked vodka bottles at parties. What was the name of the band? Something with a Y. Dan squeezed his eyes shut, tilted his head up under the water, and took himself in a firmer grip. Why not? What the hell else was he going to do? 

Time travel, which in literature and film was portrayed as something exciting and full of possibility, had mostly been a huge nuisance for him. Something embarrassing to hide, something that made his life inconvenient, and now had made him seem like the biggest arsehole on the planet.

The water didn't help much to ease the friction, but Dan focused on the burn of it. Kyle's grip had been slick with his spit, just on this side of enough.

Mostly though, time travel was boring; Dan only traveled up and down, or back and forth, on his own timeline. He'd never seen anything from before his birth, and, come to think of it, he hadn't seen himself as very old, either. That in and of itself would be grounds for some serious existential angst, but maybe, he rationalized, it would go away as he got older. But he was older now and it hadn't gone away.

Dan braced one hand against the shower wall and upped the pace, thinking of Kyle's hands. They'd touched him so assuredly, like Kyle knew exactly what to do to wind Dan up. 

He used to think that one day, he'd find out the reason for it. A reason for being flung around the time stream, a purpose to it. Dan leaned his forehead to the cool tile and thought about how purposefully Kyle had touched his finger to–

The climax overcame him so suddenly, he gasped and arched his back. He stayed where he was, panting and letting the water wash over him until it grew cold.

The band was named Tyde, with a Y. Maybe Dan was going to have to find his own purpose.

* * *

"I'm sorry I didn't see the film. I just got, er, violently sick," Dan told Catherine on Monday. "I would've phoned, but it was– I was on my way in when I had to leave. I'm so sorry."

Catherine looked at him with disappointment and pity. Dan didn't know which was worse, but it seemed the pity won out. She twisted her mouth into a neutral smile.

"That's alright, Dan," she said, kindly. "I know it must have been bad, for you to miss it. I suppose we'll just have to wait for the premiere to write a review."

"Yeah," Dan said, a small measure of relief flooding through him. "Yeah, I suppose so."

Catherine's smile brightened and she boxed Dan on the shoulder.

"I don't have anything else for you though!" she said jokingly. "What am I going to have you do?"

"I thought, well," Dan said and rubbed his shoulder pointedly. He was so tired of being thrown around in time. "Have you ever heard of a band called Tyde with a Y?" 

"No," Catherine said and flung her hair back. "Who're they?"

"Er," Dan said. "I thought I might try to find out?"

* * *

> **New Wave Isn't Too Old Yet: an introduction to synth-pop band Tyde**
> 
> _By Dan Smith_
> 
> In a time when synth-pop is giving way to a harder, rockier sound, it's refreshing to come across a band like Tyde that, unlike most bands, consists of only two lads from London. They don't write lyrics either; they brandish synthesizers and keyboards and make synth-pop that feels fresh in a way new wave never did even when it was actually new.
> 
> I would go so far as to say that their music feels like a wave; the gentle rolling of the surf against the beach. It's pleasant and invigorating at the same time, much like the people making it.
> 
> Kyle Simmons and Nick Mills, who at first glance seem like they could be brothers — they're both lanky with dark eyes and dark hair and have a tendency to finish each other's sentences — comprise the musical duo Tyde. Mills seems at ease with questions, while Simmons is taking his time to mull them over before he answers - even when it makes him stumble over his words.
> 
> I had the chance to sit down with the both of them, and asked them, as you do, to start from the beginning. "We’ve been at it for quite a while," Simmons begins, haltingly. "It started as a bit of fun about four years ago, we started messing around with some existing music, y'know, covers and remixes and stuff, and then we figured we could make some of our own."
> 
> "We’ve known each other since secondary school," Mills cuts in. "Kyle was originally mates with my brother, and then the two of us got quite tight."
> 
> Seeing as they've known each other for so long, you'd think their working relationship would grow strained. I wonder what it's like to hang your career on a good friend.
> 
> "I mean, we don’t agree on everything but we tend to try and be diplomatic," Mills says with a grin.
> 
> Simmons, very diplomatically, adds: "We’ve become better at letting go of things that aren’t necessarily best for whatever we’re working on at the time."
> 
> As a band, they're only just starting out though. Simmons works as a sound crew member, helping to set up the stage for other musical artists all over London. "It gives me a great opportunity to spy on what others are doing," he jokes, but he somberly adds that without the semi-steady income, he'd probably be homeless. "I love music, I absolutely think of it as my profession. But it doesn't really pay the bills yet, unfortunately."
> 
> The name for the music duo, Tyde, brings to mind again the rolling of a wave. A reference to the tide, I presumed. As it turns out, I presumed wrong.
> 
> "Oh! That came from when we were making some lunch in my mum’s kitchen and Kyle tried to read that famous WWII ‘We Can Do It’ poster she had up, backwards," Mills says and nudges Simmons with his elbow. "He did it wrong anyway, but the T-I-O-D thing stuck because we liked the sound. No idea why we used a Y though!"
> 
> "We wouldn't sound pretentious enough without a Y, would we?" Simmons says and flashes a smile, one of many, that is genuine enough to make his eyes crinkle.
> 
> While we're on the subject of names, I wonder about the title 'Mosaic' for their first, and so far only, album. Mills nods and answers quickly, like he's had time to rehearse the reply. "Mosaic" felt like it fit the songs we put on it. They were all made at different times in different places and felt like they were all made with different intentions but when put together, they sort of painted a bit of a fragmented picture."
> 
> Simmons picks up the thread. "We usually got together at Nick's place to work on stuff. Nick has had a bit of a– varied few years with housing, shall we say. Most of the songs were made in different London locations, which, I guess, inevitably influenced how they sound. But we always wanted to- to make a coherent whole, even if we had to piece together a lot of– fragments."
> 
> Their future seems to be coming in like the tide in any case, but Tyde reveals only bits and pieces of what's to come.
> 
> "We’re currently cooking up lots of new tracks so a lot of vocalists are soon to get pestered by us," Simmons says with a mischievous grin. He won't be persuaded to tell me anything more.
> 
> "We are talking with a few people and planning some sets in London soon," Mills says, but as he says it, he catches the imploring look of Tyde's manager, which tells us in no uncertain terms, that our time is up.
> 
> We get to our feet and I shake each of their hands in turn. But before they leave, I have to ask one last question: What influences your music?
> 
> Mills is already out the door, but Simmons looks back at me and says, with a wink: "Trying to go to sleep."

* * *

Even after the interview was published, it felt like Dan's heart beat too loudly in his chest.

What he didn't write was how, when he shook hands with Kyle, his breath caught in his throat, and how disconcerting it was to see no recognition in his eyes. His hair was neater than Dan remembered, his beard shorter, and Dan wondered by how many years he'd been off. When he took his jacket off, there was no tattoo of a bird on his arm, only the spindly tree inked on his triceps, just visible under the rolled-up cuff of his t-shirt.

Boldened by Kyle's wink though, and pushing aside the fear that he may never be able to piece the timeline together, Dan had followed them out of the interview and suggested, as casually as he was able, that they'd go out for drinks later.

"What, just us?" Nick asked, and automatically looked to their manager for approval. Kyle didn't, he just watched Dan with a polite curiosity that instantly made Dan blush.

"No, I mean, I'm headed out with a couple friends after work," Dan lied.

"Yeah, sure!" Kyle said, still without looking at their manager. "Where should we meet you?"

* * *

"Woody, please, I'm begging you. I'll owe you. I'll, I don't know, I'll tell them to sign up for drumming lessons with you."

Woody snorted loudly enough that Dan could hear it over the line. "Alright lad, don't get your knickers in a twist," he said. "I'll be there, but only if you step in for band practice."

Dan was too relieved to think over the implications. "Sure thing," he said. "Bring a friend!"

* * *

"What's this about, Dan?" Woody asked, quietly. Dan looked across the table at Kyle, Nick, and Woody's friend Will were leaned together in a discussion over their pints, and none of them seemed to have heard.

"A work thing, sort of," Dan said. "Nothing important, don't worry. This is just– we're having fun."

He tore his eyes from Kyle and his animated gestures to look at Woody, who graced him with an unimpressed look.

"Alright, whatever you say," he said, and he raised his glass and voice in a sardonic toast. "Here's to fun!"

"To fun," Will replied, with cheers from both Nick and Kyle, while a hot flush creeped down Dan's neck.

"To fun," he echoed weakly.

Dan met Kyle's gaze and saw his eyes widen. He had a breathless moment to wonder why, before Kyle shot up from his seat and exclaimed, "This song! You guys, we have to dance!"

"He's always like this," Nick said as they left their drinks and followed Kyle to the dance floor. Dan felt a strange stab of emotion that it took him a while to recognize as jealousy. He was jealous that Nick had been out with Kyle enough times to know that he always hit the dancefloor with joyful abandon.

But what could Dan say? "I'm a time traveler and we hooked up in the future, so I think we should get to know each other." No. All Dan could do was follow and let the music wash over him.

* * *

Dan was just the right —or, depending on how you looked at it, just the wrong— amount of sloshed by the time the lights went up and they had to leave.

"Seems a good time to cap it," Woody said with a big yawn as they ambled up the stairs and out into the small hours."Everything'll be closed by now anyway."

Will looked ready to fall asleep where he was standing on the sidewalk, and Woody yawned again.

"I don't know, I bet something is still open," Dan said, failing to push down the desperate voice that wanted to beg them to keep the night going. He felt pleasantly fuzzy and he wanted to delay the sharp-edged reality of tomorrow for as long as he was able.

"I thought maybe we could head back to ours," Kyle said then. He was smiling, but there was something nervous in the way he kept his hands in his jeans pockets. 

Dan tried not to look too relieved when he replied, "I'd– yeah, that sounds great!"

Woody and Will begged off — Dan didn't begrudge them; they'd already gone above and beyond for him, and he smiled weakly at them in thanks — but Nick shrugged, so Dan followed him and Kyle back to theirs – it was Kyle's place, Nick informed Dan, although Nick was living there at the moment.

It seemed like a typical bachelor pad, two rooms and a kitchen, with the TV in pride of place in front of the rundown couch where some blankets and a pillow were haphazardly pushed to the side. Beside it, a pair of keyboards were crammed, desperately in need of more space.

"Alright," Nick said and threw open the fridge. "We have– beer. I think that's it."

"What's this?" Dan said and poked at a bottle stashed on the kitchen window ledge. Kyle came up to him and picked it up.

"It's vodka, babes!" he said and twisted off the cork. "It's too tall to fit in the fridge, and we don't have a freezer," he added to Dan, in a confidential sort of whisper. Dan laughed, more because he felt like it than because it was actually funny, but Kyle's answering grin shone like the sun.

They brought the beer and vodka to the living room-cum-Nick's bedroom, and Nick twisted on the TV, mostly for background nose, as they sat down on the couch. But the baseline of a familiar theme music sounded up, and Dan, in his excitement, clapped his hand on Kyle's thigh.

"Holy shit, it's Twin Peaks!" he said. "I didn't know they put on reruns already, shut up, we have to watch it!"

"Alright, alright," Kyle laughed and shifted so he could sit back. Dan caught himself and retracted his hand. It all felt a little too much like fate. "What's it about?"

As Dan tried to sum up Twin Peaks, in and of itself a futile effort, Kyle took a swig straight from the bottle. He then handed it to Dan, who took it without thinking, but when he paused to draw breath, Kyle interjected, "I don't think we have any clean glasses, sorry."

To show that he didn't mind, Dan lifted the bottle to his lips without hesitation. As he drank, he made the mistake of meeting Kyle's gaze, and he saw how it dipped down to his mouth in the space of a blink.

Dan swallowed the burning liquor and quickly handed the bottle to Nick as he focused on the TV screen. Kyle turned to pop off the beer caps with the help of the ring on his thumb before handing them out, and Dan accepted one quietly to take a big gulp of it.

When Nick handed him the vodka back, Dan was loath to put it back to his lips. Instead he tipped it to the mouth of his beer bottle, to the protestations of both Kyle and Nick.

"What are you doing, mate?" Kyle asked, incensed. Dan shook his head and carefully poured in a measure.

"It's a drink," he said. "I forget what it's called, but trust me, I've mixed my fair share of a poor man's cocktails."

After a moment's deliberation, Kyle allowed Dan to pour a measure of vodka into his beer bottle as well. He took a swig, and Dan said, "Of course, you usually drink the vodka first and chase it down with the beer."

Kyle gave a loud snort and quickly put his hand across his mouth. Dan heard him swallow, before he coughed and said, "Bloody hell!" But he was laughing as he said it, and Dan found himself smiling at the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he did.

Nick shook his head when Dan offered him the bottle and nursed his plain beer for the remainder of the episode. It was the one where Cooper and Truman save Audrey from One-Eyed Jacks. Dan remembered seeing it before, but that wasn't the reason why his attention kept straying to the warmth of Kyle's leg pressed against his. He thought maybe the vodka had been a bad idea.

When the end credits started rolling, Nick yawned loudly. "Alright, we have an early morning tomorrow," he said laboriously. "Get out, I want to sleep."

"Oh, you're losing your touch, young one," Kyle said, but stood up with Dan, who didn't want to deny a man his sleep.

"Fuck off, geezer," Nick said, already pulling the blankets over himself. "Nice to meet you Dan, see you around."

"Yeah, you too," Dan said and followed Kyle, who carried the empty beer bottles and the vodka, into the tiny kitchen.

Kyle loudly deposed the whole lot in the sink while Dan stayed on the threshold, with one foot in the hallway. "So," Kyle said as he wiped his hands on the front of his thighs and turned back to Dan.

"So," Dan said and put his hands in the pockets of his trousers. "I, er. I suppose I'd better leave then."

"Oh, yeah, right," Kyle said and edged out of the kitchen, past Dan. "Thanks for the– thanks for asking us out. I had fun."

"Me too," Dan said, helplessly. He wanted so much to tell Kyle about everything– about why Dan had sought him out in the first place, but he couldn't. He began, "I don't–"

At the same time Kyle said, "Will you–"

They both broke off and looked at each other for a beat, Kyle grinned, and Dan laughed and waved at Kyle to keep going.

"No, I'm drunk. What were you going to say?" Kyle asked and took a step closer. 

He met Kyle's gaze then, and all things unspoken hung so palpably in the air between them that Dan reached out a hand and placed it on Kyle's arm, where he didn't yet have a tattoo. It was Dan's turn to step closer. 

"I, er," Dan said.

"Yeah," Kyle said and smiled.

Dan knew the future, but not the immediate future, and it was terrifying, this moment where Kyle just looked at him without moving. They were standing very close, close enough that Dan could see each individual eyelash when Kyle blinked.

Dan craned his neck and kissed him on the mouth.

Kyle kissed him back, immediately and without hesitation, like he'd been waiting for it. Dan felt it settle like a shiver down his spine when Kyle put a broad, warm hand on his neck, cupping it like he didn't want Dan to disappear. Dan didn't want to disappear either, so he grabbed Kyle's t-shirt, desperate to feel the heat of his body against his own.

"Oh," Dan said when they pulled apart a moment later, both of them breathing heavily

"Oh?" Kyle repeated with a laugh and trailed one hand down Dan's chest to tug at the hem of his sweater. "You kissed me!"

"I suppose I did," Dan said, and he had already sought out Kyle's lips again, the memory of the kiss hot in his mind but not half as hot as Kyle's tongue in his mouth. "Don't you have an early morning tomorrow?"

"Fuck that," Kyle said and yanked at Dan's fly, so violently the both of them almost tripped.

They stumbled into Kyle's bedroom, quietly laughing, and fell onto Kyle's neatly made bed. A quick look around the room left Dan with the impression that Kyle liked to keep his things neat, but had stuck with the haphazard dorm room aesthetic of plastering posters on the wall without framing them. But his attention was soon diverted by having Kyle himself under him, alive and warm, and frantically working to get Dan's trousers open and off.

But this time Dan wanted to be the one to touch. He rucked up Kyle's t-shirt, to feel the heat of his skin, and relished in how the muscles in his flat stomach jumped. He bent his neck and kissed him, deeply and intently enough that Kyle brought his hands up to cup Dan's face. 

Dan knew that if they kept this up, his mouth was going to be red and sore from rubbing against Kyle's beard, but it was difficult to care when Kyle kept making these small, satisfied noises with every press of lips, every searching touch of tongues.

With the kisses came the memory of before, and Dan felt the heat of it run down his spine and pool in his stomach. Kyle didn't remember it though, and Dan shifted back to get his hands on the lining of Kyle's trousers.

Kyle had to prop himself up on his elbows, and could do nothing but watch Dan's fumbling process of stripping him naked — Dan felt his cheeks heat up under the scrutiny, but he refused to let it stop him.

"Have you– have you ever done this before, like?" Kyle said, when Dan was peeling his trousers off his long legs. The question made Dan freeze. He looked up slowly, but saw nothing but breathless curiosity in Kyle's face.

"I– sort of," Dan said, truthfully. "With blokes, a couple of times. You?"

"Oh, yeah," Kyle said with a laugh. "Enough times to wonder, you know?"

"Am I fumbling that much?"

"No," Kyle said and laughed again. "No, I meant– some guys balk when they come to it. I'm trying to figure out where we are."

Instead of answering, Dan chucked his trousers to the side and laid himself flat across his legs and kissed the warm bulge of his pants.

Kyle made a noise in his throat and immediately reached out a hand to place it on Dan's head. Softly, Kyle scraped his palm across the hairs, as if mapping out the shape of his skull, while Dan pressed his tongue to the damp cotton spread taut over his cock.

"Ah, Jesus," Kyle said in a rushed whisper, and hiked himself further up, to be able to push his pants down. "Off, off! Take your clothes off, please!"

Dan happily complied, and as they settled back down together, the feeling of so much skin on skin was heedy. A tangible contrast from the mostly clothed encounter from before— to come. He pushed up on his arms and looked down at Kyle, at the inviting line of his throat to clavicle, the black hair dusting his chest and mapping the way downward.

Kyle squirmed under Dan's gaze. The shift made Kyle's cock slide against Dan's, and he gasped and had to grab Kyle's arm with one hand. He was gripping the sheets in his other, and he looked imploringly into his eyes. "Kyle, would you– I want you."

"I want you too," Kyle said, looking at his mouth, and pulled Dan down to kiss him. Dan let himself be kissed, and kissed back, but the want that ignited him would not be ignored. He made a noise and ground down against Kyle's thigh. Kyle's hand traveled from his neck over his back to cup his arse, and Dan groaned into his mouth.

"Please," he said, lips sliding against Kyle's. He was too far gone to be self-conscious. "In– inside me."

It was Kyle's turn to groan, a hot wash of breath against Dan's mouth. Dan tried to press closer.

"Hold on," Kyle said then and shoved Dan away. He had a moment where the cold hand of doubt squeezed his heart, but Kyle only rolled over to reach for his nightstand. When he rolled back to let Dan settle back across him, he was holding a condom and a bottle of something that lacked a label.

He seemed to know what he was doing, so Dan let him. Kyle's enthusiasm alone would have him interested, but the memory of their bathroom encounter and the ghost of his fingers had haunted him, and Dan wanted to know where that would have led them, if he hadn't been out of time.

So he buried his face in Kyle's shoulder, to keep quiet and to keep from looking into his eyes, while Kyle touched him and worked him open. He he rolled the condom on Kyle with fingers that trembled, without looking him in the eyes, and he braced his hands on Kyle's shoulders as he gently eased himself down, with every nerve ending in his body alight. He was afraid that if he did look Kyle in the eyes, it would give too much away.

"Oh my god," Kyle said in a whisper so loud that Dan, who didn't have breath enough in his lungs to talk, set his hand over Kyle's mouth.

Kyle looked up at him then, eyes wide and chest heaving as he fought to stay still. Every exhale washed over Dan's knuckles, and Kyle's lips were hot under his palm, and Dan was powerless to look away from his gaze in the darkened room. Kyle blinked, a slow sweep eyelashes, and he trailed his hands up Dan's thighs that were bracketing his waist.

The touch was so gentle, and such a contrast to the burning pressure where they were joined that Dan felt like he was about to split open. He braced his hand on the bed to lean down and kiss Kyle on the mouth, to distract himself.

Kyle opened his mouth immediately, but he also clamped down on Dan's thigh and used the shift in positions to bring his knees up and press his feet flat to the bed. Dan gasped as it drove him deeper, and all his attention was pulled inward, to the fiery sensation of need coalescing in the pit of his stomach and driving him on.

Kyle kept moving in small, aborted thrusts, a blunt sensation of pleasure that was building up, and Dan screwed his eyes shut and clenched his fist in the sheets. His grip on Kyle's shoulder was growing slippery, but he wouldn't let go, and he arched his back on instinct until the blunt pleasure exploded like fireworks. He gasped and pressed his open mouth against Kyle's neck, and he felt Kyle's movements grow bolder, frenzied.

Dan was quickly losing any thread of thought, and he made a noise against Kyle's skin that sounded pained. Kyle slowed again, which made Dan groan and move his hand down, over Kyle's chest, to brace himself better. But Kyle preempted him, by sliding his hand from Dan's thigh to take him in hand, and started up again, moving his hand in time with his thrusts.

The concentration of feeling was so overwhelming that the climax hit Dan between one breath and the next. His body clenched down involuntarily as he came all over Kyle's stomach, and the sound of Kyle's groan reverberated against Dan's palm on his chest as Kyle let go and followed him over the edge after two more thrusts.

Dan collapsed as his arms refused to support him, and he felt Kyle's hands come up and slowly caress the length of his back. It made him shiver, but it felt so nice that he just closed his eyes and felt the rise and fall of Kyle's breathing beneath him.

After a while, he sensed Kyle trying to shift, and forced his arms to press him up and off. The sensation of Kyle slipping out made him grimace even as he longed to stretch out his legs.

Kyle chuckled softly as he dragged his hand through the mess on his stomach and chest. "Hold on," he whispered and pressed a sloppy kiss to Dan's cheek, and Dan could only laugh as Kyle scrambled off the bed while doing his best to keep the condom in place. He disappeared, but Dan didn't have to wait long until he was back with a wad of toilet paper and a moistened towel.

They cleaned each other up, under a weirdly comfortable silence. The intimacy of this act was somehow more palpable than the sex, from which Dan hadn't yet recovered, and Dan didn't quite know what to make of that feeling.

He opened his mouth to say something when Kyle threw the towel to a corner of the room, but Kyle preempted him again and slung a bony arm around his waist and wrestled him down flat on the bed.

"Let's sleep," Kyle murmured into his neck. "I do have an early morning tomorrow. Today. Whatever."

"Alright," Dan said softly, and dared to feel hope. They settled down together, and Kyle tugged the duvet free and pulled it over them both.

Their breathing slowed down in tandem, and sleep was pulling at Dan's eyelids. He thought he'd like to stay in Kyle's bed and listen to his soft breathing as he slept, forever. But it didn't take long for the beer and vodka to make themselves known, and when nature called, you went. 

Regretfully, Dan untangled himself from Kyle without waking him. He looked forward to crawling back into the warm bed and back under the warmth of him.

Dan wasn't sure how out Kyle was to Nick, and on the off-chance that Nick would get up — daybreak was beginning to spill in through the windows after all — he conscientiously pulled on his trousers. He couldn't find his own sweater so he pulled Kyle's t-shirt on before he snuck out of the room to go to the toilet

He washed his hands afterwards and looked at himself in the mirror, tracking the dark circles under his eyes and the red bruising to his lips brought on by alcohol and too much kissing. He looked haggard, but he felt happy, which was a feeling he intended to savour. Kyle's t-shirt smelled nice.

This time, the sudden lack of light didn't immediately alert him to the situation. He blinked, and wondered if the lightbulb had gone out. Experimentally, he flipped the switch, and the light flickered obligingly to life. 

With a horrible feeling of foreboding, Dan opened the door and stepped out into the hallway again. 

He came face to face with Kyle, who screamed, loudly, and threw his hands up. Unfortunately, that was where Dan's face was. He had to curl up with his own hands across his nose with his eyes screwed shut in an attempt to make the pain go away where Kyle's knuckles had accidentally made contact.

"Oh my fucking God, what the hell– Dan? How– Why are you– How?" Kyle was saying, and Dan carefully lifted his hands from his nose.

When his world didn't explode in pain, he forced out a quiet,"Ib sorry."

He sniffed, but his nose didn't seem to be bleeding even if it still throbbed. He looked up at Kyle, who had put his hand on the wall to steady himself and was staring back with his face open in shock.

Any hope of having traveled only a short while was dashed when he saw the curls of Kyle's beard, and that he now had a tattoo on each of his forearms. How long since—

"What– how did you get in? The safety lock is on!"

"It probably is," Dan confessed and pulled his hand over the stubble on his head. 

"Why are you here?"

"I just– I technically never left."

Kyle shook his head, more like a dog shaking off water than signaling a no. Then his eyes caught on Dan's chest. "Is that my t-shirt?"

"Oh, God," Dan said and looked down. He knew he had to still smell of sex. "This is all so fucked up."

"You're telling me!" Kyle and threw his hands out. "The fuck, Dan, it's been, what, six bloody months?"

"Months?" Dan said, heart sinking. "Kyle–"

"It's one thing to leave a guy hanging —twice!— and another to break into their homes and steal their clothes!"

Kyle was sounding increasingly hysterical, so Dan decided to cut him off. "I'm a time traveler."

"Shut the fuck up," Kyle said immediately and crossed his arms.

Dan's heart was lodged somewhere in the vicinity of his ankles. He stared intently at Kyle, who stared back unflinchingly. His eyes were so, so beautiful.

"I can prove it to you," Dan said. "Well, eventually, if you let me stay. I don't control it."

Kyle didn't say anything. He looked unreadable, face drawn and arms crossed over his heaving chest, which was such a change from the warm liveliness Dan had already grown used to.

He pulled in a deep breath. "The first time it happened, I was fourteen."

It was the first time Dan had ever had to sort his sorry life into some form of narrative. He was aware of how absolutely mad every word out of his mouth sounded, but now that he'd started, it felt incredibly urgent that he finished. He was going to throw his cards on the table, and if Kyle wanted to throw out the whole deck, then Dan was going to have to live with it. He told Kyle the whole sorry story of how time travel had, in some ways, shaped his life against his will.

"The first time I met you was at Tom's party," Dan finished and looked down at his hands. "I didn't know– I didn't know you had already met me, that we were, from my point of view, going to meet again. Which is– where I've come from, now. For me, I just left the– your bed, and I turned up here. Now."

He looked up and met Kyle's eyes again. To his great shock, Dan didn't read disbelief in them.

"How– how many know about this?" Kyle said.

"Nobody," Dan said. "You're the only one I've ever told."

"That's–" Kyle said and paused before he went on. "Dan, how have you been this lonely for– since you were fourteen?"

Dan blinked. He'd never thought of it in terms of loneliness.

"I didn't think anyone would believe me," he said.

It was strange to see how Kyle unfurled from his rigid posture to put a hand on Dan's arm. He hadn't expected it.

"Why tell me, then?" Kyle asked, voice low enough to rumble. Dan wanted to feel it like you feel the purring of a cat when you put your hand on it.

He shrugged, helplessly. "I've– I don't want you to think that I left you because I wanted to," he said. "I didn't want to leave. Believe me, I really didn't want to leave."

"Okay," Kyle said, and Dan saw his tongue peek out to wet his lips. "Okay, well, so what do we do now?"

"What do we– I mean, it's up to you, isn't it?" Dan said. He grabbed Kyle's arm in return, fingers closing around the tattoo of a hand sewing something together. He wanted to know what it meant. "I'm going to go back, soon, but you— I take it you won't be there anymore."

Kyle shook his head. "I woke up with you gone. Your sweater was all that was left, and I thought you'd just– bolted."

"But you found me at the party, later," Dan said, heart suddenly beating loudly.

It was Kyle's turn to shrug. He flashed Dan a crooked grin. "What can I say, you were a pretty great shag."

Dan laughed, suddenly and surprisingly. He felt Kyle swipe his thumb across his arm, reassuringly. Dan felt a tingling in the tips of his fingers; a warning that his time was short.

"Can you find me again?" he asked and squeezed Kyle's arm in return. "Please, I– in my real timeline, now. I don't know where I'll be, but please. I want to talk to you again."

"We're talking now," Kyle said, but that was the last thing Dan heard before the world tilted around him for a dizzying moment.

Suddenly he was standing in the empty hallway with the fading warmth left behind by Kyle's palm on his arm. He stood absolutely still for a second, listening intently, but there was no sound in the flat apart from the whooshing of water in the pipes and the humming of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the far off noise of traffic through the closed windows.

The sun was already up, and Dan knew Kyle and Nick were both gone, so he put on his shoes, went into the living room and pushed open the window to go down the fire escape.

He supposed it was Kyle's turn to find him again, if Kyle wanted to find him at all.


	3. Present, 1993–1994

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to tag for this chapter. It includes sexy fun times that are somewhat complicated. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!

_ Present, 1993–1994 _

Kyle glanced at the taped-up name above the door to the recording studio, as a matter of habit. Then he did one of those comical double takes and stared at the name for several seconds.

Dan Smith. Of course, that name was as common as dirt, but still. Recording, though? Dan Smith had quit his job as a journalist by the time Kyle had started looking for him, go figure, and the phone book listed at least two pages of various Daniel Smiths, so that had been a dead end too.

Sometimes, Kyle figured he must have dreamt it all up. Time travel wasn't real, and if it was, Kyle wouldn't have gotten caught up in it like that. But then, Kyle didn't think he had the imagination to come up with the precise blue shade of Dan's eyes; he wouldn't be able to come up with Dan's scent. He'd once stopped dead beside a flower shop and sniffed around, arrested by a hauntingly familiar scent, until he found a row of pots which, according to a small sign, contained heather.

"There's a Scottish tale about heather," the flower shop owner told him with a smile. "God gave it the smell of honeysuckle."

Only thing to do. Kyle squared his shoulders and pried open the door to the control booth to slink in. Mark looked at him, unimpressed with his headphones firmly in place, but didn't protest as Kyle sat down beside him and gazed into the studio through the soundproof glass.

It was Dan. Kyle would know him anywhere. He was singing into the recording microphone, eyes closed. He was wearing turtle shell rim glasses, and a large, colourful sweater and didn't look like he'd aged a day.

Kyle refused to let his hands tremble as he reached for the spare set of headphones and slipped them on. A familiar melody reached his air and then the voice–

_ "—thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks, a new and glorious morn–"  _ Kyle leaned his elbow on the desk and hid his mouth in his hand. _ "Fall on your knees; O hear the angel voices–" _

He'd never imagined Dan would sound like this. He didn't even know Dan could sing, much less like this, like an actual choir of angels distilled into one, raspy voice.

_ "O night divine–" _

Belatedly, Kyle realized that Dan had opened his eyes. He set his hands flat on the desk, as if to push away, but it was already too late. Dan was looking through the glass at him and Mark, and his voice trailed off into silence

Mark leaned over to press a button and spoke into the microphone. "Alright, Dan. You think you could take it from the top again?"

"I– yeah, yeah sure, I can– yeah. Sorry," Dan said, eyes locked on Kyle, who had frozen in place.

"Great," Mark said and glanced at Kyle before he took his hand off the button and leaned back again.

The playback started and Kyle saw Dan blink and gather his thoughts. He looked away for a second, but as he opened his mouth to sing, his eyes were back on Kyle.

_ Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining _

_ But we stand cold, waiting for the morning's birth _

_ Long lies the world in sin and error pining _

_ For something good, and to feel our own worth _

Kyle blinked. He wasn't religious, but he was pretty certain this wasn't how the words went, at least in church. As Dan went on, it became clear that he had indeed made the song his own  _ — led by a light, of faith so blindly beaming — _

This time, Dan got through the entire song. He held the last note without closing his eyes, but when it had faded away, he looked down at his feet. He seemed embarrassed, and Kyle saw him pull at his own earlobe until Mark pressed the button again to say. "Yeah, that was great, thanks Dan!"

Dan glanced at them, and he smiled weakly. "Alright, thank you Mark," he said and hesitated before he reached for the door.

Kyle didn't hesitate. He was out of the chair and the room in two seconds flat, and he basically bowled Dan over in the hallway outside the studio.

"Kyle!" Dan said and grabbed his arm, to balance him. He looked down at it, and turned Kyle's hand upside down to inspect his tattoo, and it made something hurt in Kyle to see. "How long has it been for you?"

With a strange mixture of anticipation and anxiety, Kyle put his free hand on Dan's shoulder. "Three months, since you appeared in my flat. Almost nine since Tom's party– that was late April, I think. You interviewed us a year ago, in November."

"I know when I interviewed you, that was– I was in my own time, then," Dan said. He seemed shy, like it was awkward for him to talk about it. Kyle looked around, but there was no one else in the hallway, and Mark seemed to stay put in the control room.

"Are you on your own time now?" he asked, voice low.

Dan nodded, hesitantly. "Yeah," he said. "I usually don't– I mean, it doesn't happen that often, really."

"So I found you!" Kyle he said and squeezed Dan's shoulder. "You want to go grab a cup of tea? You said you wanted to talk."

Finally, a smile seemed to break through the cloud of worry on Dan's face. "Yeah," he said. Kyle noticed that one of his front teeth was crooked, and it filled him with unnameable warmth. "Yeah, I'd like that."

* * *

"Okay, so let me get this straight," Kyle said and pointed the spoon at Dan, pausing to laugh at the glimmer of humour in his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, okay, I get it. So, a year ago, when I met you for the first time, you met me for the second time. And then you quit your job to join Woody's band? And then you– you waited a year for me to find you?"

"Almost," Dan said, shifting his grip on his mug of tea nervously. He was leaning his face in his other hand, and it painted an endearing picture to the backdrop of the cozy, holiday-decorated café, which was beginning to empty. "I did wait a year after you met me for the first time, but that was when I met you for the second time, and then, I suppose, I met you for both of our third time—

"I'm getting a headache," Kyle said and leaned his forehead on his fingers. He was smiling as he said it though. It felt absolutely mad, but there was nowhere else he wanted to be.

Dan smiled back, quickly, and finished, "—and then I quit my job to work on my music. It's not Woody's band, Woody didn't have a band until I came along."

"And then I found you, so fourth time's the charm!" Kyle said, only to see Dan smile again. Crow's feet appeared in the corners of his eyes when he did.

"Yeah, I suppose so," he said and took a quick sip of his tea, which had to be lukewarm by now. Kyle had long since downed all of his. "I didn't think– I mean, I didn't know if you would believe me, and even if you did, that you'd want to find me."

Kyle, who was twining the spoon between his fingers in a nervous habit, accidentally dropped it to the table with a loud clatter. He smacked his hand down on it and stared at Dan.

"Listen, Dan," he said seriously. Kyle remembered standing in his own flat, seeing him and feeling him under his hand, undeniably flesh and blood, and then him being gone in the literal blink of an eye. The opposite of seeing colourful smudges on the inside of your eyelids after rubbing your eyes. "You winked out from before my bloody eyes like a light. And I'm pretty sure you're a shit liar anyway."

The crinkles reappeared by Dan's eyes. Kyle took a quick look around, but the café was near empty and the teller behind the bar was busy wiping the shelves, and he put his hand on Dan's, on the tea mug. He felt Dan tense, but he didn't pull away.

"I don't know, I'm alright," he said with downcast eyes. "People usually just aren't that interested in truths as far as I'm concerned."

"Stop trying to earn pity points, you've already got them all!" Kyle told him with a grin. "I'm truly sorry for– for your time travel related problems, but I'm telling you, I didn't have it easy either! I was dumped by the same fit bloke twice, and then it took me months to, to find him after he told me he hadn't done it on purpose!"

"I'm not trying to–" Dan began, but then halted and looked up at him. "Fit?" he said with a smile playing at the edge of his mouth, and it was Kyle's turn to duck his head.

"Yeah, alright," he said and pressed his thumb into the back of Dan's hand. "I think you're fit, so what? And then I wonder, if it weren't for the time travel, would you ever have noticed me."

"I probably would have," Dan said. He let go of the mug to capture Kyle's hand in his own. "I think you're fit too, you know."

Kyle felt the smile spread on his own face. Dan was regarding him with glittering eyes. "Well, then, that's great! I think, now that we're both caught up, we could, I don't know, maybe keep seeing each other or summat."

"Yeah," Dan said and squeezed Kyle's hand. "I think we should."

"Good!" Kyle said, aware that he was dangerously close to babbling. "Okay, now that that's settled, I think this place is about to close, but I do still have a perfectly good flat not far from here."

"I remember," Dan said and let go of Kyle's hand. "I had to climb out the fire escape." 

"You didn't!" Kyle exclaimed, delighted. They were getting up and putting on their jackets, and Kyle could see Dan blush. It seemed to be a trend, whenever Kyle kept talking about something that had to do with the time traveling. 

Quietly, Kyle resolved to keep talking about the time traveling with Dan until it didn't make him blush anymore. Besides, he wanted to know everything, and even though Dan hesitated sometimes, he openly told Kyle everything he wanted to know - how often it happened, what it felt like, if he'd ever managed to win the lottery by checking out the winning number, if he'd ever changed his own life when he traveled back.

"Well, I couldn't say," Dan said, hands deep in the pockets of his fur-lined denim jacket. "Because, if– when I meet a younger version of myself, it's already happened. I can remember it, you know?"

"That has got to be so weird!" Kyle said and fumbled with the key to the flat as he tried to get the door open. For Dan, it had been a year since he'd been there, but Kyle had seen him in here not three months ago.

"It  _ is  _ weird, oh my god," Dan laughed. "I can't even begin to tell you."

When they got inside, Dan politely took off his shoes and jacket and peered around, as if cataloguing changes. Suddenly, Kyle felt acutely self-aware and slightly embarrassed, and he desperately tried to think back on what his mother had taught him about being a host.

"D'you, I mean, want a drink? Like, like water," he said, and rushed past Dan right into the kitchen. He'd filled two glasses before Dan had even followed him in, and he pushed the glass in Dan's hand so enthusiastically that some of it spilled on Dan's shirt.

"Oh, thank you," Dan said and looked down at the stain. It made Kyle laugh, but then a thought struck him, and he set down his own glass and rushed back out of the kitchen.

When he came back, Dan had drained his glass and placed it beside Kyle's filled one on the counter. He eyed Kyle with curiosity, as Kyle had both hands behind his back and couldn't stop grinning like a lunatic.

"I have a Christmas gift for you," he said and paused for effect. "You might even say it's a... Christmas present."

It took a second for the pun to land, and when it did, Dan groaned and facepalmed pointedly. 

"Oh my god," he laughed quietly. "You're kidding me."

"Nope!" Kyle said, and impulsively held out his hands.

In them he held a sweater, soft and worn. He watched Dan look at it, and he saw understanding dawn in his eyes.

"What– you've kept my sweater for over a year?"

"It smelled nice. Fair warning, I did wear it a couple of times."

Dan reached out and touched the fabric of the sweater. "I can't believe you kept it, even after I accidentally dumped you a second time."

Kyle affected a shrug. "Who am I to look free clothes in the mouth?"

"That's not–" Dan broke off to laugh. He gathered himself and looked up. "You can keep it, if you like."

Suddenly, Kyle's mouth felt dry with the need to kiss him. "I'd rather keep you," he blurted out. He had a moment to regret it, but Dan was laughing, and he reached out to tug gently at Kyle's hand.

"I don't mind staying," he said slowly. "If you don't mind that I'm sometimes in the wrong time."

"I don't mind," Kyle said, heart thudding in his chest, and stepped closer, close enough to count the freckles on Dan's nose. "I mean, my timing has never been great either."

Gratifyingly, Dan was still laughing when they kissed again.

* * *

There really was no predicting the time travel. Kyle had grown, perhaps not used to, but at least to accept, that sometimes he would call out for Dan, who'd just walked into the kitchen, and not get a reply because he'd vanished. Booking a date was fraught, and with the schedules they kept, near impossible anyway, but Kyle figured that just meant they had to make the most of the times they were together, which accounted for some of the reasons they moved in together just after new years'. Maybe it also accounted for how Kyle sort of found himself working more on music with Dan and Woody and Will than with Nick these days.

But the trouble with time travel wasn't what Kyle thought about, when he thought about Dan. He tended to think about how Dan wanted to put hot sauce on every food ever, sometimes even his breakfast. He thought about the time where he'd been so swamped with work that he didn't have time to get a haircut appointment, so Dan had brandished his electric razor and bent him over the sink to trim his sides and neck. "Don't worry," he said as he set the cold metal to Kyle's skin, just below his ear. "I do it on myself all the time."

"I know, that's what I'm worried about," Kyle said. And though Dan threatened to shave a strip right across his scalp in retaliation, Kyle knew he never would.

He thought about Dan laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes, from something Kyle had said or done, how warm it made him feel. He thought about how easy it was to be working in opposite corners of the living room, Kyle on his soundboard and Dan on the couch with all his notes spread out around him, and then look up to find the other already looking, and from there come to a quiet understanding that they move over to the bedroom. Easy as anything, Dan would cant his neck up for Kyle to kiss him whenever he wanted in the privacy of their home.

It wasn't all easy though. They both knew they were trying to make it in the music industry, which was unforgiving in the best of circumstances, and though Dan kept saying he didn't much care what people thought of him, he did care about his privacy, and Kyle didn't want to trample over that boundary. He knew his own manager would prefer he didn't tell when no one had asked, but it was bloody difficult, to keep your mouth shut sometimes.

Sometimes, like when some bigoted arsehole with peas for brains talked about "the poofters ruining the music industry", and Kyle wasn't able to point out that the only song of his to reach the top ten radio hits was one Kyle and Dan, notable poofters in their own right, had helped him produce. Or just smack him on the mouth. Instead Kyle made a mental note to drop any and all future collaboration efforts, and went home in the pouring rain, which fit his mood perfectly.

The resentment was still brewing in him, but he could feel it turning into something else already. Kyle wished his energy wasn't so manic; that he knew how to be balanced in his moods. But his dad had always said it was all or nothing with him, and Kyle had to agree. He had an itch under his skin now, a fire in his veins, and he opened the door to their flat with the breath caught in his lungs, with a feeling so desperate that it felt physical.

"Oh, hi!" he heard Dan call from the living room, and the breath left his lungs in an audible whoosh. That morning Dan had told him he was going to work late, but this was a surprise Kyle welcomed. He threw the key onto the dresser and kicked off his shoes before he walked into the living room too, and found Dan on the couch among his notes.

"Hey," Kyle said and went straight to Dan, who inexplicably looked like a deer in the headlights. Without pause, Kyle bent down and cupped his face in his hands and kissed him. Dan made a noise of pleased surprise, evidently not caring that Kyle was getting rainwater all over him, dripping from his hair, and melted into the kiss, warm and pliant.

But Kyle didn't want pliant. He tugged impatiently at Dan's lower lip with his teeth before he used his whole body to push Dan down flat on the couch. With the steady beat of rain against the window panes as backdrop, he clambered on top of him, insistently kissing him all the while.

"I should tell you," Dan said and pulled back a little to look Kyle in the eyes, "I'm out of my time, but I checked the calendar–"

"Uh-huh," Kyle said and kissed him again. The calendar was one of those day-by-day tearaway things that Kyle conscientiously made sure were up to date every morning, so that an errant Dan could be sure when he was. Once, Dan had accidentally revealed that he'd traveled some years into the future and seen that they'd kept it up. Kyle had gone warm inside with the certainty that they were still together some years in the future, even though Dan refused to reveal anything more.  _ I don't want to compromise your ability to choose, _ he'd said. Kyle had scoffed and kissed him.

Now he kissed him again, and again, but in between the kisses Dan seemed adamant to say his piece. "Really, I'm from later tonight, I'm not your Dan."

This explained why he was in only a t-shirt and pants. Generally Dan tended to be mostly dressed, for fear of ending up sometime when it was inappropriate not to be. "Of course you're my Dan," Kyle said and rucked up the t-shirt, to feel the heart beat in his chest. "You having trouble sleeping?"

"That's nice of you to say," Dan said, carding his fingers slowly through Kyle's hair. "And not– I just wanted you to know. So you don't think I'm someone I'm not."

"If you're from later tonight, do you know what we're going to do?" Kyle murmured and kissed the soft spot where Dan's jaw met his throat. He pushed up on his arms to look down at Dan and saw the faint blush spreading in his face. "You do know what I want, don't you?"

"Yeah, but–" Dan said, but Kyle was already sitting up to take off his own clothes. The blush was spreading from Dan's cheeks to his neck and chest, and Kyle would never tire of it, of seeing the visible reaction Dan had to him. He pushed himself up on his elbows under Kyle and raked his gaze down his naked body, and Kyle leaned down to kiss him again.

"So get to it," Kyle said against his lips, fighting a grin. Dan gave a huff that trailed off in a soft moan, when Kyle reached down and pressed his palm over his half-hard cock.

"I don't– we have to move it to the bedroom," Dan said, voice breaking. Kyle only grinned broader, and got to his feet to tug Dan up and with him.

In the bedroom, Kyle splayed himself comfortably on his stomach and let Dan get the lube. He fought the instinct of asking Dan how much he knew, when he'd traveled, because he knew Dan wouldn't answer, and instead gave himself over to the sensation of Dan's fingers in him, gently working him open.

"You're incredible," Dan whispered into his neck at one point. Kyle only turned his face so his cheek rested on his crossed arms on the pillow.

"You better get on with it," he said, fighting to keep his voice under control. "Who knows how long you have left."

Dan groaned, a hot gust of breath over the nape of Kyle's neck, and Kyle shifted so Dan could line himself up. "I take it back," Dan said, voice strained. "You're just unbelievable."

Kyle huffed a laugh, but the sound caught in his throat at the incredible feeling of Dan filling him up. He wanted all of it immediately, he wanted Dan to fuck every thought out of his head, so he pushed up against him in a bid to make him move.

Dan made a broken noise and abided with his wishes. He fucked Kyle deep and slow, like he had all the time in the world even though they both knew he didn't, until sweat glued their thighs together, until their breathing was coming in quick, the pulse in Kyle's ears loud enough to drown out everything else. He felt Dan speed up, for two thrusts, three, and then he came with a groan.

The sensation made Kyle moan into his arm, and he pressed down into the sheets, mindlessly. He felt Dan pull out, and it was Kyle's turn to groan brokenly.

"I'm sorry," Dan gasped and pulled at his side, to make him turn. "I think I'm- I can feel that tingle in my fingers."

Kyle did turn, and he grasped Dan's hand in his and kissed his fingertips. "It's okay," he said, so turned on it hurt, and watched Dan nod, tiredly, with sweat making his forehead shine. "Give future me a blowie or something," he added, just to see Dan break out into a grin.

Then he was gone, with that strange sense of disruption that followed.

Kyle slumped back against the sheets with a sigh. That itch under his skin was still burning, and he knew that just wanking off wouldn't take the edge off.

He heard the door open, the rustling of clothes and the jangling of keys.

"I'm home," he heard Dan's voice, and Kyle turned back on his stomach. Serendipity, he had to presume.

"In here," Kyle said, voice rough. "If you're up for it, I'd love for you to join me."

Dan cracked the bedroom door open. He was smiling faintly, but the smile dropped away when he took in Kyle's wrecked state. Kyle grinned crookedly at him.

"You're going to travel, later today, to earlier today," Kyle said and shifted a little. "You want to get over here and finish fucking me?"

"Well, when you put it like that, how could I resist," Dan said, but he did let Kyle pull him in and hungrily strip him of his clothes.

He smelled of rain and was cool to the touch, at least in the beginning, and when Kyle pulled him on top and guided him inside, Dan made the sweetest sound deep in his throat.

"You're so wet," he said, looking at Kyle with eyes wide in wonder, mouth falling open.

"Oh yeah," Kyle said, closing his own eyes. "That's you, you know."

"That's so weird," Dan groaned, but he pushed in all the way, torturously slow. Kyle smiled, still without opening his eyes.

"I'm not complaining," he said. "Just– fuck me, Dan, god."

"You're so demanding," Dan said, but Kyle crossed his legs over his back, driving him in deeper, and his words trailed off into a drawn-out moan that Kyle kissed out of his mouth.

As if sensing how on edge Kyle was, Dan took him in hand and moved in time with his thrusts, keeping it slow at first, but speeding up after some time, when the both of them were close. Kyle had no choice but to let go, give over control, until the orgasm was pulled out of him, with an intensity that almost left him sobbing for breath. Dan followed him over the edge not seconds later, with a breathless gasp, and folded in on them both.

Later, when Dan was about to get up to get cleaned, Kyle closed his hand around his wrist.

"Stay," he said. "If you don't get dressed, you can't travel, because I saw you in a shirt and pants."

"That's not how it works," Dan said and kissed Kyle's forehead. He must've caught several hair strands in his mouth, but he didn't seem to mind.

"I know," Kyle said and kissed Dan's cheek. "But stay anyway. Just for a bit."

Dan complied, moving them both around so they were snuggled close, Kyle resting his head on his arm. "I'm sorry," he said, with a mournful blink.

"Don't be," Kyle said. The stubble on Dan's face wasn't as long as it had been, but the reddish tint was already unmistakable. "You're going to show me one hell of a time soon. If at some point I don't get to have a threesome with you, I'll be severely disappointed."

The corners of Dan's eyes creased in a smile, and Kyle kissed them, first the left and then the right. Dan found himself in the treatment, and let Kyle pull him even closer.

_An ending_


End file.
